Salzburg is small cosmopolitan and a very
picturesque city with fascinating architecture, and rich cultural
heritage. As the birthplace of
Mozart, Salzburg prides itself on being a destination for music. Every
year the Salzburg Festival draws Mozart fans and music lovers in droves.
‘The Sound of Music” also put Salzburg on the map.

At first, I was skeptical about taking the
Sound of Music Tour because I thought it was cheesy. This tour turned out to be an excellent way
for exploring the region. The first part of our tour was a drive to Untersberg
where the first scenes of the film took place. The palaces and charming little village homes
set against the looming Austrian Alps provided a very picturesque setting
throughout this whole drive. The hills were alive indeed! Our coach drove
past Leopoldskron Palace (which was the first view we have of the Von
Trapp family in the film). We did not stop at Leopoldskron Palace as it’s…

I was famished when we arrived in Vienna so we did not waste time seeking out a place to eat. We went to the closest restaurant across the main train station. The first thing I noticed when I entered the restaurant was a display of pastries. Thinking that it was not serving the kind of lunch I was looking for, I left and went to the restaurant next door. However, the restaurant next door had the same set-up. I found an overwhelming variety of savory baked goods, cookies, cakes, chocolates and marzipans (my favorite). Little did I realize that the restaurants we entered were coffee houses?

We ended up walking from one Café to another and ended up buying a piece of marzipan, chocolate, tart or apple strudel here and there. We found a table outside and happily consumed our lunch (pictured below).

At home, I’m usually a model of temperance when it comes to sweets. I usually eat fruits for dessert and when eating out, I would only order gelato or ice-cream and cut fruits for dessert. …

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The Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine had been on my list of National Parks to visit. My original plan was just to hike, I did not plan on doing any other activities like kayaking or swimming, So I thought one day was enough to enjoy the park. However, Acadia National Park has more than 125 hiking trails and a variety of landscapes. People pretty much go to Acadia National Park to enjoy the landscape and the amazing views. I took a short hike and a scenic tour, soaking in the beautiful landscape that included shoreline, woods, lakes, ponds, and granite-domed mountain – the Cadillac mountain.

There were free shuttle buses to the park from Bar Harbor, a quintessential New England coastal town, sandwiched between the ocean and the mountains. I joined eight people on a 12-seater explorer bus. From the National Park entrance, the road climbed through a forested mountain, blanketed with green trees; maple, beech, jack pine, and other hardwood trees. Our driver pointed to the area …

On a recent trip to the Baltic, I had the chance to visit the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia, one of the oldest and largest open-air museums in Europe. It’s located on the banks of Lake Jugla and just 30-minutes drive from downtown Riga. The museum was established in 1924 and had collected 118 historical buildings from all over Latvia. Information as to when and where the building was built and when it was added to the museum is posted on each building.

On a beautiful clear day, with blue skies and fresh air in abundance with temperature in the mid-60s Fahrenheit, I expected a few visitors around, but there seemed to be no other visitors but our group. Which is strange since there were lots of tourists in the Old Town, Riga about eighteen kilometers away.

After the museum entrance, we entered the first building - a barn with a collection of ancient wooden carriages on display. But the information posted on the building describes it as Roadhouse Pub built in the district of Ba…

I spent my fair share of time in the northern part of Thailand, volunteering at the elephant farm five years ago. I really enjoyed my stay with a local family and learned about their culture and where I began to understand why Thailand is called 'The Land of Smiles'. For some reason, I never had a strong desire to visit Bangkok, probably because big cities are off-putting to me. It’s only now that I realized how much of a missed opportunity this had been and glad to include it in my epic Southeast Asia travel this year. I began my trip to Bangkok with the knowledge I learned from volunteering in the northern part of Thailand where I felt safe.

Right after landing at Suvanabhumi airport and going through customs, I went straight to a transportation booth to ask where I could find a cab to my hotel. Instead of pointing me to the cab waiting area, I was led to believe that I was in the right place. A man pointed me to the clerk at the counter who started preparing a receipt for…

I was walking the Balsam Hollow trail when deep in the forest, I heard bird songs in concert with the sound of rushing waters. I stopped at the tiny bridge to listen to the sound of the rushing waters and admire the streak of sunlight reflected on the water under the giant trees when a girl with long red hair and wearing a dull-grayish puff sleeve dress with a cream-colored apron came skipping through the trees. She was holding a wicker basket covered with an embroidered cloth. “I’m off to the Lake of Shining Waters,” she said. “Wait, Anne, wait,” I shouted after her, “Can I come with you.”

Ok, that was a stretch. The Anne part didn’t really happen. But where I was standing it could easily have happened. I imagined my favorite character in the book, “Anne of Green Gables” describing to me in flowery words the places and things I was seeing. With her passion for beautiful places, she would have been a great tour guide. Ever since I read the book (ok I read it more than a couple of time…